Analysis: Supporting the homeless requires all of us, not just our political elites

 Sarah Koski is the author of “Eugene’s Homeless Heartbeat: Stories of Resilience and Community.” She says supporting our homeless neighbors will require not only our political elites, but the whole community. She spoke with KEPW News by phone Aug. 18:

Sarah Koski: I came to Eugene, Oregon with a full-ride scholarship to the University of Oregon Honors College. 

I was very active in politics. I was working with the League of Women Voters. I was working on ballot measures, a lot of their legislative advocacy reports, all of these different things, and I was so idealistic to think that I as a 19-, 20-, 21-year-old could change the world just with my voice.

And later as I progressed in academia and in my career, as we were molded into this track at the Honors College—of elitism, right? ‘You’re only as well respected as the community you’re with. You’re only as renowned as the books that you read or how smart you are,’ right? 

And I knew I was smart. I was astronomically blowing out all of the testing. 

And what I didn’t realize was as I left the University and I was going into these fields and these works, and you know, I talk all the time about the social standing that I had or the international work that I was doing, or you know, coming to these elite parties, yachting with Apple executives, going and traveling all across the nation to meet millionaires, multimillionaires, doing all sorts of amazing work for the Red Cross.

You know, I really thought my social standing or clout or what I had to offer, or the elite circles that I worked with was the way that an agenda would be moved.

And I had it so wrong.

DeLeesa Meashintubby had hired me as a development director for Volunteers in Medicine in Lane County. And at this time, DeLeesa was just starting up her thrift store, ‘Our Sister’s Closet,’ and it was in Glenwood. 

And she had taken me to Glenwood to kind of show me the site, show me her vision, and there were all of these unhoused people who were sitting on the side of the wall of the building and I was offended that these drug dealers and these criminals and these people that could come and like hurt us were next door.

And it didn’t seem to bother her, right? I was like, ‘This is your store.’ And even after all that, she had taken some shoes that were donated for the thrift store and had set them out in this beautiful unified row in front of the store, locked the door, and I left with her and I kept asking her like, ‘Why would you leave these shoes out?’

You know? ‘This is going to draw more homeless folks to your building.’ And I was just like, ‘We need to call the cops. We need to get these people swept.’

Like, I was literally the person trying to convince DeLeesa to sweep the homeless, right? Like, I was the Monique DeSpain, right? 

And she just looked at me with a smile and she literally said, ‘One day you’ll learn.’ As in, ‘One day, you’ll learn about the compassion,’ right? Because as a woman of faith, as a leader in this community, as director of Volunteers In Medicine, she knew what it was like to show compassion.

And at that time that compassion wasn’t in me and I never understood it until after the pandemic. 

I had this super curiosity of what life was like serving the unhoused. And I remember I finally left everything and left the decorum of wearing diamond earrings and left being Phi Beta Kappa to go into the trenches of homelessness.

And I think that while everyone in this community has a desire (I would like to think everyone in this community has a desire) to look for solutions for homelessness, I don’t know if we understand that social clout and social standing is not what’s going to be solving homelessness.

And this is, you know, one of the things that I noticed when watching the videos between Monique DeSpain and Lisa Levsen and Jetty Etty under the bridge and how all of that really culminated was, really, each entity didn’t understand what the other entity was saying.

And that’s a sad thing, right?

You know, Jetty came from her perspective of like, ‘Hey, I have lived experience. I’ve lived on tracks, I’ve seen things, I’ve seen human rights crises that I can’t even repeat to you.’

DeSpain is coming in saying, ‘Look, I’m getting advising from public safety, all this. I’m trying to come and serve coffee and understand.’

And then Lisa, obviously, in the midst of the food line, trying to do what she’s trying to do to keep the peace.

It ended up just culminating into something where everybody left offended. And that’s what’s so heartbreaking is, everybody leaves feeling that they’re misunderstood, feeling that they’re not heard when each and every person has a role to play.

And I think that one of the biggest takeaways from that video was, a campaign staffer or volunteer from DeSpain telling Jetty that literally, and I quote, ‘I guess you are not socially connected enough to get in,’ meaning that Jetty and the work that she did did not have enough credence to be able to be present at that roundtable, a closed-off roundtable that Monique did on homelessness.

There was no compassion or reflection of why someone would be so angry that Monique was down there. There was just nothing but offense. And the greatest division that we have in our country and our community right now is the spirit of offense. 

That’s where I drew the line. Because unfortunately I have to say and admit that I was there with that same thinking pattern when I was at the University of Oregon. I was there with that same thinking pattern where I was gallivanting around the nation and advising overseas.

I had that same thinking pattern even when I was learning under Deleesa Meashintubby at Volunteers in Medicine about social connection, social hierarchy, the illuminated ones, ‘I am more prestigious and more profound in what I have to say because I’m highly educated.’

And that very statement of that gentleman coming back to Jetty really broke my heart because he’s there and that’s his truth, right?

But until you unplug from all that, until you literally take the safety belt off and say, ‘I’m unplugging from what the world and what the community tells me is what gives us a sense of power and privilege’ and go into the trenches and live with the homeless, or learn with the homeless, or do all these different things, you’re not going to truly understand what is going on in the streets.

So in 2021, when I left an executive directorship of a nonprofit, I let go of board positions. I let go of being chair of the Lane County COAD. I let go of two gubernatorial regional task forces, all of those things, to go into the trenches of 410 Garfield, which was one of the largest lowest-barrier shelters in the county and presumably the state at the time.

And what I learned there, and I will say it over and over again, was way more than I had learned about the fruit of the spirit in a Bible study about patience, long suffering, lovingkindness, your word is your bond, all of this.

But I also learned that the things that were being presented in meetings and board meetings—about what life was like on the street or that all unhoused folks are criminals or they’re only there to work off of the system or the government—was completely false.

The narratives that I saw, the broken hearts and the souls in that place were so precious. I still have friends there today.

And I think that while Jetty and I have completely different moral beliefs, right, we come from different walks of life—Jetty has seen the same thing. And she’s lived on the track with these individuals.

And I’ll give you something that I really still think about probably every week and truly haven’t come to terms with.

So when I started my new position at Lane Transit District, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, because it took me out of the everyday trauma of working at front-line social services where I was able to look at solutions, work with community partners.

I had a desk. I was safe. I could go out into the street and work with my connections. I could go to a Chamber meeting, I could come back, I could meet with LTD staff, and I had this real individual safety net.

And that’s not something that Lisa Levsen or Jetty Etty has. They’re seeing deaths on the street. They’re seeing people get raped, maimed, tortured, I mean, and they’re having to deal with this day upon day upon day without any crisis support or crisis communication, or going and retreating back into an air-conditioned office like me, right? Like, I have been really privileged in the role that I play.

When I started this job, I got a very unique invitation from a local banker, and that banker had invited myself and some very prominent women to the ballet and I hadn’t gone to the ballet or the symphony for years after working with the homeless.

Now, granted, I had been going to the ballet and to the opera up in Portland ever since I was in kindergarten. My family always had tickets to go and see things, in Ashland at the Oregon Shakespearean Festival. I was very well educated and well placed in the arts and culture scene in the state of Oregon.

So now this is my return back, to go see the ballet. I was ecstatic. I had heels, velvet long pants. I had a beautiful sparkle top. The ladies had champagne and drinks. I had mocktails. We had hors d’oeuvres. Then we walked to the Hult Center and just enjoyed a beautiful night.

I mean, there was laughing, there was celebration. I just felt like, ‘Wow, you know, maybe this is me being able to come back to what folks consider reality and normalcy,’ right?

Maybe the time of all that pain and suffering and chaos has ended and now I can come back to being what I’m used to being of just celebrating life and celebrating arts and culture.

And everybody leaves and because I am a transit advocate and don’t have a car, I had coordinated a rideshare on my way home and it was late in winter and it started to snow and hail, and it felt so good. I didn’t want to leave outside. And so I’m draped in my sparkles and my velvet.

I get a call and it’s late and I’m standing in my heels on the pavement of the Hult Center and it’s Jetty Etty, and Jetty is out with the Barefoot Defenders and there are illegal sweeps happening on the train tracks, and she’s calling for help to see what we can do to get supplies or whatever it is.

It is illegal to sweep during times of inclement weather because where are people going to go? And Egan (Warming Center) wasn’t open at the time. And how can you take folks’ belongings or force them to move when it’s the middle of a rainstorm or a hailstorm? And all of that.

And the dichotomy of me in velvet and sparkles and just seeing a ballet, standing out in the midst of hail with a woman calling for help, that there was a sweep in the middle of a hailstorm for people to move—why at that time, why at that moment?

And that night I had to make a choice. Do I want to go and wine and dine with these beautiful women? Or do I want to be in the trenches? And the answer is, I want to be in the trenches.

Now for someone like a staffer with Monique DeSpain’s team to tell Jetty—who was doing everything she could in her own way to love her community—that she lacked the social capital or the social team to be able to be invited to a roundtable. Now, if that’s not their cup of tea to have at the roundtable, that’s okay. Say that.

But don’t use power or influence or renown to counter what this woman is doing because what this woman is doing, there is a role for everyone in this community.

And for her campaign staffer to literally say, ‘I guess you’re not socially connected enough to get in.’ Like, bro. Bro. You know, come on man. That’s elitism. That’s not something you want to perpetuate.

And if you’re having those elitist tendencies and thoughts before you even get elected, what type of thoughts are going to come to you once you’re actually in office and in D.C. and people are courting you, right? That’s not a safe mindset to have.

I’ve gone through everything that Monique has gone through. But I think the difference yet is she hasn’t had that moment of clarity of the broken-hearted compassion. And I got to that point at 410 (Garfield) where my heart broke and I had to learn what life was like.

Like I just, I left all society behind. But not everybody gets an opportunity like that, you know? And I admire Jetty. She loves the people on the street and I’ve learned a lot from her.

And I think that as we progress in our advocacy for homeless services, we’re seeing a great divide now of ‘human-centric solution’ versus ‘Time’s up, we gave you enough time to try and figure out this stuff. We’re just, we’re just going to get folks in somewhere. We’re going to give them some medication to wean ’em off drugs and they’re going to have to work, you know, pull it up by the bootstraps,’ like a new sense of indentured servanthood.

And I just prayed deeply and I pray fervently that we as a society here in Lane County and Eugene don’t give up to the point where we start losing the voices of the canary in the coal mine. 

Because someone like a Lisa Levsen or someone like a Jetty Etty is the canary. And the problem is, if there is an issue in the coal mine, that voice that canary will only sing so long until that canary will need to leave or get out or be silenced.

My concern as we’re progressing into this new election cycle, as we’re progressing with this lack of funding, is the very compassionate human-natured individuals that are truly doing the work at the trenches are being burned out.

They’re getting sick. They are losing strength. Wages are not increasing. In fact, they’re decreasing. I know of someone who was laid off in her position—the only position of its type in the city. She took another position and is taking on two roles just to make sure that her community is safe, right?

I think that there’s a lot for us to look at and whether you agree with one side or another on politics, all Jetty is doing is looking for ways to solve problems in her own ability and her own accord, and I think she’s doing a wonderful job.

I admire her tenacity. And I just hope that we as a community listen, before the flares that are being thrown up—of saying, ‘Help, help! There’s something not right here’—finally end.

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 Sarah Koski is the author of ‘Eugene’s Homeless Heartbeat: Stories of Resilience and Community.’ You can read more at SarahCascadia.Substack.com.